


Back From the Land of the Enemy

by Masu_Trout



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alexander Hamilton's Bad Life Choices, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Dark, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5842411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander Hamilton finds a crossroads and makes a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back From the Land of the Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly me taking incidental song lyrics way too literally, hah. Hope you enjoy..?

The devil looked like George Washington.

Hamilton could only assume he'd done it on purpose. He had to be pulling faces from Hamilton's memory, playing with the visages he knew would affect him most. The ploy was so blatant it almost felt amateurish; certainly not the quality of work he'd expected from the Great Deceiver, the Father of Lies, etcetera etcetera. 

That didn't mean it wasn't pissing Hamilton off, of course. He of all people knew that sometimes the least subtle tactics could be the most effective.

The air was heavy and completely still. Not even the slightest breeze stirred the dead weight of it. The trees around them were wreathed in bright green leaves—New York had some of the most beautiful summers in the world, after all—but right now they seemed like little more than lifeless twigs.

Everything here, even nature itself, screamed one thing: _turn back_.

Still. Hamilton had been called many things—desperate, poisonous, a total bastard—but no one had ever accused him of being a quitter. He'd spent weeks researching this place, digging through long-forgotten texts and poorly-copied firsthand accounts, all for the slightest chance that the legends he'd heard might be real.

He'd been right. God help him, he'd been right, and he couldn't turn tail and run now.

“Well?” The devil arched an eyebrow and smiled. The oily, serpentine expression looked completely unnatural on the general's broad face. 

Hamilton couldn't help but remember Yorktown. The sheer joy, the unhesitating pride, in Washington's beaming face as he'd looked down at his men—

No. He couldn't be thinking about that now. There was a reason he was here tonight, standing at the crossroads and staring down the devil. He couldn't afford to forget it his purpose for even a moment.

Hamilton squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. “Let me see the paperwork,” he snapped.

The devil's grin grew and grew until it threatened to split his face in two. “Of course, Mister Hamilton,” he purred. “Please, take your time.” He slipped his hand beneath the lapels of his coat and a moment later pulled out a thick sheaf of crisp papers. The ink on the pages was so fresh he could smell it.

Hamilton grabbed the papers from the devil's hand, careful not to get any closer than he had to. The moment he had them he retreated to the other side of the crossroads. Such a small amount of distance probably wouldn't do him any good, but it couldn't hurt. It made him feel a little better, at least.

The stars above and the thin sliver of the crescent moon were the only light Hamilton had, but somehow he found he didn't need any more than that. The writing was as clear as could be. 

He sat on the hard-packed ground, uncaring of the dirt and the mud, and began to read.

–--

Six hours later, the devil roared. It was an awful, piercing sound, a noise made from equal parts blinding rage and pent-up ire, and it echoed through the forest around them with an eerie reverberation.

Hamilton pulled his glasses down off the bridge of his nose. “Yes?”

The devil snarled at him, decidedly inhuman fangs poking out from beneath the corners of the general's lips. His anger made him look even less like Washington; the commander Hamilton knew had occasionally lost his hold on his temper, but never like this. There was no grace in this, no nobility, just a pure bestial fury.

“How _long_ ,” the devil hissed, “can it possibly take to read through a simple document? I had heard you were an intelligent man, but apparently the tales they told were subject to gross embellishment.”

Hamilton shrugged. He couldn't deny that this felt good. Even the slightest bit of power was a triumph when facing a monstrosity such as this.

(He was in the eye of the hurricane now, and none of this monster's petty rage could touch him. Soon, perhaps, he would be suffering. _But not yet_.)

“Forgive me,” he said, “I was just finishing. Surely you're used to people reading your contract?”

The devil drew back, apparently somewhat mollified by Hamilton's calm or by the promise of a swiftly-approaching resolution. “It is rare, actually. You're certainly the first to triple-check it.”

Quadruple-check, actually, but Hamilton bit his tongue. No matter how much he wanted to argue, now was not the time and that was not the argument to have. 

_Talk less,_ the memory of Burr's voice whispered in his head. It was on a constant loop these days; he'd lost so much because he couldn't shut his mouth. His wife's trust, his shot at the presidency, his son's life…

He was always talking, writing, arguing, debating, giving useless advice and picking fights that only made things worse. Perhaps it was time to put his pen to a different use.

Hamilton gathered the papers up from where he'd spread them across the dirt. “I assure you, I found nothing to complain about.”

“...Really?”

“Well,” Hamilton amended, “nothing _unfair_.” There was plenty he'd like to complain about.

“In that case...” The devil reached into his coat once more and pulled out a slim-handled pen. “Are you agreeable to the terms?”

Hamilton plucked the pen from the devil's fingertips. For a moment, all he could do was stare at it. None of this felt real. Some part of him still thought that any moment now he was going to wake up, safe and warm in his bed uptown. 

(Safe and warm and so, _so_ broken, facing the shame of what he'd done—what he'd allowed to happen—every time he saw the missing space at their table or let a rhyme drift into nothingness because there was no one there to finish it for him. His guilt was written across Eliza's face, in the horror-struck expression that overtook it every time she thought he wasn't looking.)

If this could help Eliza—if he could trade his own life for one less shattered, one that still had a future stretching out ahead of it—then it would be enough.

“All right.” He pressed the nib of the pen against his thumb, pushing in until the skin split and his blood welled up and spilled across the metal. 

He'd always put his soul into every word he wrote. This time, he'd just be doing it a little bit more literally.

“Let's do this,” Hamilton said, and put pen to paper.

**Author's Note:**

> _If I could spare his life_   
>  _If I could trade his life for mine_   
>  _He’d be standing here right now_   
>  _And you would smile, and that would be enough_


End file.
